


bread is to stone as fish is to serpent

by isilya



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-12 20:43:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/495451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isilya/pseuds/isilya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“The killer we are looking for is well educated and is most likely a white male in his early thirties, ” Prentiss says, looking around the room with big, serious eyes. “He’s organized and prides himself on his meticulous planning. He holds a position of respect in the community. People look up to him and he’s well-liked.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	bread is to stone as fish is to serpent

_Successes have many fathers, failures have none._

– Philip Caldwell

__

* * *

Your cell phone beeps, and you stub your toe on your coffee table as you go to retrieve it.

 _Briefing at 8_ , you read and think, _Fuck!_ You didn’t get much sleep last night and getting called into work an hour early is the last thing you need. There’s a giant pile of laundry in the bathroom that you planned to get to this morning but now there’s no time to even make coffee. 

You throw the worst of the laundry in the machine, dump in powder and bleach and fabric softener, and run out the door.

You decide to get a smoothie at work. 

***

“The killer we are looking for is well educated and is most likely a white male in his early thirties, ” Prentiss says, looking around the room with big, serious eyes. “He’s organized and prides himself on his meticulous planning. He holds a position of respect in the community. People look up to him and he’s well-liked.”

“Excuse me, Agent Prentiss,” the man to your left interrupts. 

“Yes?”

“Why would someone like that suddenly take to murder?”

“Narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by the inability to recognize the lives of others as being of equal importance to one’s own,” Reid stands up and gestures enthusiastically. “A classic example of narcissism is eighties cult leader Michael Ferguson, who persuaded his ninety followers to mass suicide. When he was questioned about the deaths he replied: “I will not miss them.”"

“This killer knows us,” David Rossi says, gazing into the distance like he can see something everybody else is missing. “He’s doing this in our back yard. He’s choosing high profile victims and _daring_ us to come and get him. A pregnant newlywed, a six year old child on his first day of school — by choosing these victims the unsub is breaking the strongest taboos of our society.”

“It’s significant that the unsub has not killed any adult men, and that all his victims are white and middle-class,” Prentiss says. Your eyes drift to the hallway, where you can see Morgan pacing up and down and speaking on his cell. “Although none of the victims knew each other, they all come from very similar backgrounds; they could have been neighbors. That makes it extremely likely that the killer is a white male; the wide range in the ages of the victims gives us the age of the killer.”

“We don’t yet know why or how the killer is choosing his victims, but we do know –” Reid breaks off as Morgan abruptly enters the room.

“We’ve got another victim,” Morgan says, and everybody immediately jumps to their feet — another victim means the end of the briefing until the team have had a chance to go over the new scene. “A thirty-four year old male.”

The room falls silent. 

“But that means –” the man to your left exclaims. 

“That we don’t have a profile,” Morgan confirms. His cell rings and he flips it open. He turns away to answer it. “Tell me what you’ve got, beautiful girl.”

“Jesus Christ,” the man next to you mutters. “It’s a fucking shambles.”

You nod, and decide to go and get that smoothie.

***

You press the button for the elevator impatiently. The doors slide open and Morgan has Reid crowded into a corner. Reid slips out and bumps your shoulder as he moves past. 

“Just _think_ about what you’re doing,” Morgan calls after him. Reid doesn’t look back. 

You hover at the entrance for a second. “I’ll catch the next one,” you blurt out, as the doors begin to slide close. 

“No, it’s fine.” Morgan holds the doors open and makes an effort to smile at you. “Going up?” 

You nod. “Is Spencer okay?” you venture. 

“You know Reid?” Morgan asks. 

You bite your tongue on _You have no idea who I am, do you?_ and reply: “We’ve caught a few Star Trek marathons together.” 

“You’re a fan?” Morgan asks. His phone rings. He makes a little “excuse me” gesture and answers. “Baby girl, I found another Trekkie for you.”

The elevator jerks to a halt. Morgan smiles at you and waves as you get out. You realize he didn’t answer your question and decide to try and catch Reid before the next briefing. 

***

“I’m fine,” Reid says, but there are dark blue smears under his eyes and his cheeks are hollow. “It’s just this case — the more information we get together, the less we know. I’ve never seen a case this resistant to a profile before. I wish — ” he breaks off and his mouth twitches. 

“You miss him,” you prompt, and Reid gives the tiniest of nods. 

“Gideon understood the mind of the serial killer in ways the rest of us couldn’t,” he says. “We’re gathering information about the unsub but every time we try to make the leap from the facts to a profile, we end up nowhere. That was Gideon’s speciality: making that leap.” He hesitates and says, “You must miss him too.”

“I hardly knew him,” you answer honestly. “There’s really no profile?” You gesture to the briefing room door. “What are you going to tell us in there, then?”

“Honestly? The profile we have is so generic it is useless.”

“I’ve always wondered whether it was worse to have a profile that was too general or too specific,” you muse.

“It’s easy to become obsessed with what you might have got wrong,” Reid agrees earnestly. “Some of the pioneers of profiling made errors in their profiles that categorically ruled out the actual killers. James Brussel missed the age of the Mad Bomber by a decade.”

“Profilers and psychics,” you kid, and nudge Reid gently with your shoulder. 

“Actually, there are a lot of studies comparing the methods of profiling to the –”

“I was joking!” 

“I know, but take for example the language of profiling and the kinds of statements used by psychics. The disappearing negative for one –” Reid breaks off abruptly as Morgan and Agent Hotchner approach. “Would you excuse me?” he asks. Reid’s body language has always been easy to read and at the moment he looks like a trapped animal. 

“Hey, Trekkie,” Morgan greets you. You notice that Reid seems to shy away from him. 

“Reid, I need to speak with you.” Agent Hotchner gestures in the general direction of his office. 

“Before the briefing?” Reid swallows nervously and you can see his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. He tugs on the ends of the sleeves of his cardigan. 

“After will be fine.” Agent Hotchner checks his watch. “We should get started now, in fact.”

“I’m still waiting for a call from the pathologist,” Morgan says. 

“Do you think that the final report will change the profile?”

Morgan snorts. “This profile, such as it is? No, I don’t think so. Preliminary findings were identical to the other victims.” 

“We go in with what we’ve got, then. The unsub is obviously accelerating, we’ve had two kills in three days.” Agent Hotchner is grave and serious and you briefly wonder if he has any other expressions. Sometimes he reminds you of your father; both men totally accustomed to having everybody listen when they speak. 

Prentiss and JJ appear carrying piles of folders. “Ready for the briefing?” JJ asks, waving a file.

“Go ahead and start distributing them,” Agent Hotchner says. “I think almost every one who needs a copy should be in there by now.”

Prentiss wrinkles her nose. “Somebody might want to consider a shower,” she says. “Or at the very least a change of shirt.”

Immediately, Reid, Morgan and Agent Hotchner attempt to check their own armpits. 

“I haven’t been back to my place in five days,” Morgan says, burying his nose in the front of his shirt. 

“Hey, my boyfriend forgot my name the other night,” Prentiss complains. 

“You’ve got a boyfriend?” Morgan wolf-whistles. “Brave man.”

“He’s long-suffering,” Prentiss admits. “Profilers make terrible girlfriends.”

“And terrible brothers,” Morgan says, suddenly serious. “I missed Sarah’s birthday last week.”

“And terrible sons,” Reid says.

“And really terrible fathers,” Agent Hotchner adds, very quietly. 

The group is still and silent for a moment. You’re skeptical of their remorse; all you see around you are Type A personalities. You want to tell them “it’s not the job, it’s _you_ “. Your father was a workaholic just like this, but even on vacation, he was never around; he was as obsessive about his solitary hobbies as he was about his job. 

“I’m sending you all home as soon as we’re finished in there,” Agent Hotchner says abruptly. “Go home. Shower, sleep.” He raises an eyebrow at Morgan’s beard. “Shave. I want you back in tomorrow morning prepared to re-examine every detail of this case.”

“Then onward, fearless leader,” Morgan says. “We have a profile to give.”

***

You wonder how Reid’s talk with Agent Hotchner went, but you don’t see Reid all morning. So it’s a surprise when you come back from lunch to find him sitting at your desk, eating your candy. 

“Hey,” he says, and points at one of the pictures you have up in your cubicle of you and your father. “What are you there — six?”

“Seven,” you correct. 

“I wish…” Reid says a little wistfully. 

“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” You pull the pin out of the photo and show Reid the writing on the back. While the picture appears to be of you and your dad enjoying a summer outing, the picture is labeled _Smith funeral, 1989_.

Reid makes a silent “oh”, and takes the photo from you. 

“Hiding out from Morgan?” you guess. 

Reid pales. “Is it that obvious?” 

You gesture around you. “You work with FBI agents — I don’t think you should expect to keep any secrets.” You hope you haven’t been too pointed. The only people directly discussing Reid and his sudden weight loss and his dilated pupils and his bloodshot eyes are the staff in the cafeteria. 

Reid’s shoulders hunch further inward. “I trusted Morgan,” he says quietly. “And –” He twists his fingers together. “Sometimes I feel _too young_ for the team. How is Morgan supposed to trust me or — respect me? Being scolded by Hotch doesn’t help either.”

“It didn’t go well last night?”

“It was mortifying,” Reid admits. “Like being sent to the principal’s office. And now Morgan wants to _talk_.” 

“Can I ask…?” you venture.

“Hotch wanted to talk to me about therapy. He wants an assessment by an FBI psychiatrist — I’ve been under the care of a psychiatrist since I was eighteen, it’s not as though my mental health is neglected.” Reid shrugs. You look at the sharp point of Reid’s collarbone and think maybe it’s not just his _mental_ health that needs supervision. 

You toss him another candy bar. 

“Does therapy even work when you know more about Freud than the shrink? Or more about the personality tests than their creators?” 

One side of Reid’s mouth creeps up in a small grin.

“It’s always about the mother, don’t you know?”

“Or the father!” you add, and you take your photo from Reid and pin it back up on your cubicle wall. 

Reid finishes the candy bar and balls up the wrapper. He tosses it at the wastepaper basket under your desk and misses. You laugh.

“Come over tonight.” You retrieve the wrapper and make your own shot, which also misses. “Best out of three — loser buys the pizza.”

***

It’s hard to turn in to the parking garage at work the next day because of the hordes of media camped outside. You’re tired and crabby from lack of sleep and the last thing you need is to hit a reporter with your car. 

You saw on the nine o’clock news last night that that they’d made an arrest, but the six o’clock news this morning reported that another body had been found — in fact the body of the arresting officer. You can only imagine what kind of hell it’s going to be at work for you today. 

You’re incredibly tempted to call in sick but you think it would probably look suspicious to ditch work just when everybody is going to be most under pressure. You think _Mental Health Day_ longingly and decide to apply for some leave soon: just because you’re surrounded by workaholics doesn’t mean you have to turn in to one.

You bump into Morgan and he again greets you as “Trekkie!” confirming he doesn’t actually know your name. 

At about 10 o’clock, word starts coming around that a member of the BAU is missing. Everything hits fever pitch — the gossip mill working overtime, dark-suited men slinking around the building talking into their wrists. But there are no more briefings and in fact you don’t see the team all day. 

You have never been more relieved to have a work day end. You call in at the pharmacy on the way home to fill your prescription for pills that can stop a migraine in its tracks and down a few as soon as you get home, barely pausing on the way to the bed to gulp down a glass of water. 

You wake up a few hours later and stumble into the kitchen. The remains of last night’s pizza — anchovy and mushroom — are congealing on the counter. Reid is passed out on your couch. Somewhere amongst the cushions, his cellphone is ringing, so you dig it out and turn it off. 

You wonder if the late night grocery store would still be open, mentally reviewing the contents of your fridge. Reid won’t eat breakfast, so there’s no need to buy cereal or milk, but — 

Reid wakes up. He stirs, blinks, licks his lips.

“What’s happening?” he mumbles. 

“Shh,” you soothe, and test tightness of the cords around his wrists. You push half a dozen pills into his mouth and hold his nose and mouth shut until he swallows. 

You sit with him until he’s asleep again. You get two loads of laundry done. 

It’s a peaceful night. 

***

The next morning at work you catch sight of JJ and Prentiss hugging in what looks like a death grip, both of them with red-rimmed eyes. Anyone within twenty feet of Agent Hotchner’s office can hear Morgan yelling: 

“It’s personal,” he shouts. “That’s what we’ve been missing, that’s what we haven’t been able to see! We can’t get a profile because the unsub is deliberately fucking with us!”

It’s harder to catch David Rossi’s quieter reply, but you have always had good hearing.

“Then that’s the profile. The unsub is someone with a deep knowledge of our methods and a reason to hate the BAU. Every profile we gave conflicted with the next victim; we have to consider that the unsub might have had access to our briefings and targeted his victims accordingly.”

“Someone at the BAU?” You hear Morgan explode, but Agent Hotchner’s reply is muffled. Suddenly the door to Agent Hotchner’s office bursts open and Morgan strides out, nearly bowling you over where you stand, knocking the file out of your hands. “Get the _fuck_ out of my way!” he spits at you, and you scuttle back immediately. 

He storms out and you crawl around on the floor, gathering up your spilled papers. It takes a while to calm your heartbeat. 

You’re sipping a mug of peppermint and camomile tea back at your cubicle when Morgan pokes his head in.

“I wanted to apologize,” he says. “I’m sorry about earlier. There are no excuses, but you know that Spencer is missing and I just snapped for a second.”

“No need to apologize,” you say immediately. “I’m as concerned about Spencer as you are. We’re kind of like brothers, in a way.”

Morgan smiles at you but you can tell you’ve confused him a little. Then he sees the photo of you and your dad pinned to the wall and double-takes. 

“You know,” he says lightly. “It’s embarrassing, but I never actually caught your name.”

You hold out your hand.

“Steven Gideon,” you introduce yourself. 

“…Gideon?” he repeats, and you can see the shock in his face.

“You didn’t know dad had a son?” 

“I had no idea you worked here,” Morgan prevaricates. “Have you heard from him at all?”

“Not for years,” you say. “Have you?” 

“No.” Morgan shakes his head. “No, I haven’t.” 

You gnaw your lip for a second before venturing: “Spencer was avoiding you.”

Morgan winces. “I know, ” he says. “We have some things to sort out between us.”

He briefly reaches out to tap your dad in your photo.

“Your father is a great man,” he says. “I respect and admire him deeply.”

You nod and take another sip of your tea and Morgan turns to leave. 

He hesitates for a second, and you can practically see the questions churning away in his head. 

You wonder how much time you have before he figures out the right question.

You wonder if you have time to finish your cup of tea.

Morgan starts to turn back toward you, hand slipping towards his holster. 

You draw your Glock before Morgan manages to draw his. 

He raises his hands and you think: _No, not enough time to finish my cup of tea_.

You place the gun to your temple and draw a deep breath and pull the –

* * *

_For rarely are sons similar to their fathers: most are worse, and a few are better than their fathers._

– Homer 

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [while we tell of yuletide treasure](http://www.yuletidetreasure.org/archive/41/breadis.html) as a gift for kris. thank you to cim, wax, dark squire, special trille and mr booboo. it takes a village to raise a story!
> 
> Also valuable in the writing of this story was malcolm gladwell’s _[dangerous minds](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/11/12/071112fa_fact_gladwell)_ article in the new yorker.


End file.
